I am not in Afghanistan.
Posted on | October 27, 2008 | No Comments
If I could do it all over again, I’d be a corpsman.
I’d justified my direct participation in war as a machine gunner by pointing out that I was going to Afghanistan, which is the operation I believed in more. But hadn’t I always been staunchly against the very principle of war? Why was I arguing in defense of one war when it had always been my belief that all any war has accomplished is begetting further war?
The young teenager crying havoc through a megaphone was quickly reclaiming his stake over me after four and a half years of dormancy during my tenure in the Marine Corps.
The truth is I felt guilty at the prospect of leaving the organization without having gone to war. When would the guilt end? If I went to war, I’d be a team leader — and if one of my men died there, would I not feel guilty enough to go back?
Pro-war advocates are quick to point out that “our men are asking to go back! They want to go to war!” This logic is flawed in that it assumes the men are going because of patriotism and courage. But that’s not where the fire comes from.
America’s sons and daughters go to war because of guilt. Guilt over not participating in something you’ve been told from your first day of boot camp you would: “Every man here will have been in or will be in Iraq this time next year.” If it doesn’t happen, you feel like it’s your fault and try everything to remedy the situation. Or you’re the Marines I knew who went to Iraq and made friends during the transitionary period with the incoming unit. Now it’s time for your unit to leave, but “I can’t leave my men.” So you volunteer to extend your deployment, or you get back in garrison and your life’s mission becomes going back. Eventually, you go because somebody else died– they call this “survivor’s guilt.”
If guilt leads men to combat, then I would feast like a glutton on its substance. When would someone like me suddenly decide they’d done enough? When have I ever decided that in my life?
What would war teach me about politics? After a year abroad, I’d be able to come back to proudly say “yes” to the war question. Regardless of how well I did over there, the result would be the same. “I went to war.” And how long would that pride last? Have I gained so much confidence in the powers-that-be that I’m willing to accept that they are not at all at fault for Sept. 11, 2001 and our present-day circumstances? The last thing I want is to find out twenty years from now that I had killed the wrong people.
Warring would not change my opinion of war. At best, it would reinforce it, and at worst, as a man seduced by guilt, it would destroy me.
As my departure date for infantry school was pushed further and further back, I was becoming fascinated with civilian life. All my adult life to this point I’d spent in the military structure, which I became a part of at 18 (my birthday took place on Parris Island.) I started questioning why I was going, or rather, considering my friends’ and family’s conclusion that it was the stupidest thing I’d ever do in my life.
I’ve indefinitely suspended my offer to volunteer for Afghanistan to further consider the implications of going as a soldier. I may still go as a humanitarian, if only to give weight to my conviction that diplomacy, not war, should be the foundation of our foreign policy.
For now, though, I’m just going to have to accept my guilt as a derivative of military service and be content that it was inspired by a lack of perceived impact on my brethren rather than the consideration of my actions in combat.
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